One Paragraph Movie Review: Gladiator

One hundred and eighty-first film: Gladiator, a movie in which not every pusscat survives. As far as macho stories go, this has everything — murder, revenge, a creepy megalomaniac with an inferiority complex, and an underdog hero with a bone to pick and a picking-up-handfuls-of-dirt gimmick. As far as sets and cinematography goes, this is absolutely epic, with Rome recreated in all its dusty majesty and the guy who does computer-generated flocks of birds rising around the Colosseum earning every last cent. And as far as manliness goes, if it wasn’t for hurt feelings, empty pride, the ability to hold a strong grudge and the inability to show weakness, many, many people (and at least one pusscat) would still be alive today. Russell Crowe isn’t really my favourite, the CGI in the year 2000 was definitely not up to the job of recreating Oliver Reed mid-production, and every punch sounds like a two-volume dictionary being dropped suddenly on a desk, but aside from that this is a pretty good time. Three and a half medicinally questionable maggots out of five.